Cold Morning
by Darkchilde
Summary: The sequal to "Walk Me Home". Catie and Jamie wake up, and things go downhill from there....


Disclaimer: HEY! Guess what, there still not mine! *grin* This is a direct sequal from my VERY FIRST story, "Walk Me Home". ANybody remember that one!? LOL! I finally did, and I came up with an idea for a sequal. Now, I warn you know, this did NOT turn out the way that I orignally intended it to. It's rated PG-13 for child abuse ( I was considering making it R, but I didn't want to scare ALL my readers off...), and I hope that you like my attempt at a sequal for Walk Me Home. It's not as light as the first one is, and I have an idea for a sequal to THIS, if people like it. :) Anyway, I've babbled enough, so MERRY CHRISTMAS and without further ado...  
  
Cold Morning   
  
The sunlight streaming through the window woke Jamie Waite up. Blinking wearily, he put a hand up to his forehead, trying to clear the sleep induced sluggishness from his mind. As soon as his thoughts became more coherent, a stray thought smacked him upside the head.   
  
SOMETHING wasn't right.   
  
This wasn't his bedroom, because his bedroom didn't have this much sunlight in the morning.   
  
This wasn't his living room-with four little sisters, nothing ever stayed THIS neat in his house for very long.   
  
These two things added up in his mind, and realization dawned on him-this wasn't his house at all.   
  
Of course, that wasn't the REAL giveaway. The REAL giveaway was that, no matter how often he wished it differently, he never ever woke up with Catie Roth asleep on his chest.   
  
The young girl in question stirred in her sleep, snuggling her face deeper into his shirt, and tightening her hold on the lapels of his black leather jacket. Jamie attempted to move, but was afraid of waking her up-not only was he NOT sure what he was doing here, something told him that Catie wasn't much of a morning person.   
  
Blinking his eyes again, Jamie strained to see the clock setting on top of the mantel above the fireplace. Seven thirty five, it declared smugly. And judging by the sparkling sunlight streaming through the window, as cheerful as it could be, Jamie was beginning to think that no, it wasn't seven thirty five at night.   
  
That meant, of course, since he didn't remember being home at all last night, he hadn't BEEN home since yesterday. That meant he had stayed out all night.   
  
That meant that he was dead in the water as soon as he got home.   
  
"Oh God…" The distraught young man moaned out loud, leaning back against the couch and closing his eyes. "This can't be happening…."   
  
"Huh?" A soft, slightly muffled voice asked from his chest.   
  
Jamie opened his eyes and looked down, just as Catie sat up. However, since she wasn't LOOKING up, this resulted in her smacking the top of her head against Jamie's chin. "Ow!"   
  
"Yeah…" Jamie moaned, reaching to rub his chin. "I think you made me bite my tongue."   
  
"Oh sorry…JAMIE!? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE!?" Catie squealed, jumping up out of Jamie's arms. Unfortunately, she seemed to have forgotten that they were on the couch, and misjudged the distance, landing with a solid thump on the floor.  
  
Jamie jumped up from his seat on the couch, and offered her a hand up. "Are you okay?"   
  
"Fine. Now, what the heck are you DOING at my HOUSE at--" Catie's eyes danced to the clock on the mantle "Seven forty in the morning!?"   
  
"I've been thinking about that…" Jamie began, rubbing his chin, his dark eyes thoughtful.  
  
"And you have concluded--what?!" Catie asked, pushing a lock of her long black hair behind her ear and glaring at her friend in annoyance.   
  
"Well, I haven't concluded ANYTHING except that I'm as good as dead when I get home." Jamie moaned, running his fingers through his black hair in annoyance.   
  
"YOUR dead?! I'm the one that let a guy sleep at my house--when my parents weren't home! I'm SO DEAD!" Catie shrieked, grabbing her hair and yanking.   
  
"Yeah, well, I didn't got HOME last night Catie--at least you managed to make it home! My mother probably thinks I'm dead in a ditch or something!" Jamie pointed out, pressing the heels of his hands against his forehead.   
  
Catie suddenly let go of her hair, and made a face, looking right at Jamie. "Is it just me, or are we arguing about who's going to be deader when their parents catch them?"   
  
Jamie dropped his hands from his face and looked at her, his eyes suddenly glinting in the morning sun. A slow smile pulled at his lips, and he tried to keep from chuckling out loud.   
  
"I think we could find something much better to argue about, don't you?"   
  
"Oh definitely." Catie started to laugh, and shook her head, her long black hair twisting around her face.   
  
"Only we would fight about something like that." Jamie concluded, smothering his own laughter with his hand.   
  
"I know. But I still think I'm deader!" Catie snickered.   
  
"I agree." A VERY un-amused sounding voice piped up and Jamie and Catie both froze. Since Catie was standing with her back to the door, she had to turn around to see who it was standing in the doorway, even though she could have recognized the voice and tone at fifty paces.   
  
"Umm...hi...Mom..." Catie didn't even bother to turn around.   
  
Jamie blinked owlishly at his first glance at Catie's mom. It was obvious to him that Catie must look a great deal like her mother, with the same dark hazel eyes and slightly wavy black hair. However, she lacked the good nature that he normally saw in Catie's eyes, and her mouth was drawn down into an unhappy frown, the wrinkled skin around her mouth confirming Jamie's suspicions that she grimaced often.   
  
The dark haired older woman stalked around in front of her daughter, who seemed loathed to move at that moment, and gave Jamie the once over. Obviously, she did not like what she saw, because her scowl seemed to deepen with every passing second. He fidgeted, suddenly very uncomfortable because of her cold eyes, and flicked his gaze to Catie, wondering what she thought about all of this.  
  
What Catie thought about all of this was scrawled across her delicate features like a two year scribbles on a wall. Her eyes snapped with some kind of hidden anger, and her lips were curled into a less ferocious imitation of her mother's expression. However, Jamie had never seen her look so enraged, and he mentally winced, hoping that he was going to be able to get out of here with his skin intact.   
  
"Caitlin. Would you MIND...explaining...what this young...man, is doing here, at eight in the morning?" Catie's mother requested, her eyes making the comment into a demand.  
  
"Yes, I would mind." Catie snapped, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at her mother, her dark eyes snapping.   
  
"Umm...maybe I should...go?" Jamie thought out loud, swallowing and beginning to move toward the door.   
  
"Something's telling me that that is the most intelligent thing you've ever done." Catie's mother snapped, her eyes flashing. Jamie blinked, but began to move toward the door again, shocked by the woman's nasty attitude.   
  
'Of course...if I had just walked in to find MY daughter with a guy that looked like a hoodlum at eight o'clock in the morning after not having been home all night, I probably wouldn't be real thrilled either.' Jamie thought to himself, half way to the door before Catie's voice dragged him bodily out of his thoughts.  
  
"How DARE you?! You don't even KNOW Jamie, and your already putting him down! You are such a--" Catie didn't finish her statement, because her mother's hand smacking across her cheek cut her off.   
  
Jamie spun around as soon as he heard flesh met flesh, and stared in shook as Catie put her hand up to her rapidly reddening cheek. That had not been the kind of hit a normally mother would bestow up their mouthy children to get them to be quiet and to get their attention. No, that had been a smack to hurt, to hurt badly. He gaped at the spot on Catie's cheek, even as she put her hand up over it to hide it from his eyes.  
  
"Shut up you little slut! How DARE you talk back to me, after dragging home this--" Catie's mother pointed a long, blood red nail at Jamie "piece of white trash, and doing who knows what with him all night long?!"   
  
"If you'd bothered to come home last night..." Catie started, but was cut off again by her mother's hand. This time, the woman put real force behind it, and Catie hit the floor with a thump.   
  
That was, Jamie reflected even as he moved forward to help Catie off the floor, the straw that was going to break the camel's back. Using ever ounce of will power he had ever had, Jamie bite back every snarling comment that he wanted to spit at the older woman, and focused solely on Catie.   
  
He slipped his hands underneath her arms and lifted her to her feet, as easily as if she was his littlest sister. She wavered on her feet for a moment, then steadied herself on his offered arm, her fingers biting into his flesh, even through his thick leather jacket.   
  
"You think that's bad, you little whore, you just wait until your father gets home!" Catie's mother screamed at the girl, her eyes clouding over slightly. Catie winced, but steeled herself, throwing her head back and straightening her shoulders.  
  
"So where is Daddy? Out sleeping with another girl my age?" The brunette snarled, with real venom.   
  
"You little..." Catie's mother started forward, her murder in her eyes, and Jamie reacted. Grasping Catie's slender arm firmly in his hand, he yanked the girl behind him, putting him between the raging woman and her daughter.   
  
He glared down at the small woman from his superior height, his eyes flashing out a warning. No matter how cruel Catie's mother was, she wasn't stupid, and she recognized the promise in Jamie's dark eyes. 'You want her, you get through me'.   
  
The older woman glared up at him for a second, still looking like she had been sucking on a lemon for three years. But she didn't move, and Jamie took that as a good sign.   
  
With a final glare, Jamie turned and gently pushed Catie toward the door. The girl stumbled slightly, but followed his insistent prodding, her feet slapping against the floor dully, like she was in shock. He winced, hoping that she wasn't REALLY in shock--he didn't think he wanted to go BACK to the hospital after having just come from their.   
  
The dark haired youth heaved a sigh of relief when he pushed Catie out of her house into the sunlight. He'd had no idea that her home life was that bad! She had insinuated once or twice that her home life was no picnic, but Lord help him, he had never realized...  
  
Jamie shook it off, focusing instead on getting Catie somewhere where she was safe, and he could figure out where to go from there. The most logical place, he realized, was probably his house, even though he was going to have one HECK of a time explaining his whereabouts last night. But right now, that didn't matter. Right now, Catie was the only thing that mattered.   
  
*****  
  
Melissa Matthews yawned as she walked out the front door, rubbing her face tiredly. This was the last time she stayed up past midnight talking to Miranda on the phone about the people at school. Really.   
  
The young blonde girl shuffled out toward the mailbox, her terry cloth robe swirling out behind her, and her Labrador puppy chasing after the leaves in the yard. Reaching the mailbox, Melissa opened it and pulled out the mail, blinking rapidly to try and clear her sleep induced blurry vision.   
  
She happened to look up when she heard the door next door slam shut, and her vision cleared up RAPIDLY. Walking out of the Roth's house was a red faced Catie, the weird Goth girl that, truth be told, terrified Mel, followed by...Jamie Waite?! Melissa gaped, and tried not to drool on her house shoes.   
  
What in the world was Jamie doing at Catie's house at...what was it, eight in the morning? No way had he just gotten up and come over...his clothes looked to rumpled, and his hair was sticking up, and hadn't Catie been wearing that the other day?   
  
"Oh my God..." Melissa muttered to herself, her blue eyes twinkling. Wait until she told Miranda that Jamie Waite had spent the ENTIRE night at Catie Roth's house...  
  
*****  
  
Catie had been quiet almost the entire walk to Jamie's house, and he couldn't tell if it was because she was in shock, ashamed, or just didn't know what to say. Either way he needed to get her to talk about what had happened, to find out how bad it truly was at home for her.  
  
"Catie?" Jamie asked, reaching out to put a gentle hand on her shoulder.   
  
"I'm okay." She whispered in a monotone, her eyes studying the ground.  
  
"Catie...it's okay if your not." He whispered to her, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, and turning her to face him. "I mean...what just happened..."  
  
"Wasn't that big a deal." Catie told him firmly, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. AS she did so, it brought more attention to the rapidly forming bruise on her pale skin, right below her eye and stretching across her cheek.   
  
"Wasn't that big of a deal?!" Jamie wanted to scream, but fought for and kept his cool. He put his hands firmly on her shoulders, and pulled her close to his body, so that he could look her directly in the eye. "You don't think what just happened to you was that big of a deal?"   
  
"It happens...well...not all the time, but it's never been that bad before." Catie tried to defend her mother's actions, knowing full good and well that Jamie wasn't buying a word of it.   
  
"Catie...you mother put a bruise the size of your fist on your cheek!" Jamie reminded her, lifting a hand to her face to carefully sweep a finger across her high cheek bone.   
  
"She didn't..." Catie tired to deny it, but cut herself off when she caught the look in Jamie's eyes. "Jamie...you can't..." She tried weakly, but this time it was Jamie who stopped her, pushing a finger to her lips.   
  
"Hush. Let's just...get to my house, okay? We'll talk about this later." Jamie swallowed hard, running his fingers through his dark hair   
  
Catie just nodded, and the two began silently walking again.   
  
******  
  
Jamie swallowed hard, and reached for the knob of his front door. However, before his fingers could wrap around it, he jerked his hand back and made a face. Catie snickered, rolling her eyes.   
  
"How many times are you going to do that?" She teased him gently, her eyes sparkling.   
  
"I think about fifty. What am I up to?" Jamie joked.   
  
"29."   
  
"Well, 21 to go!"   
  
However, before Jamie got a chance to do his little "I don't want to open the door" dance again, the aforementioned door was thrown open and a smiling little girl with beautiful dark brown eyes and bright red hair beamed out at the duo.  
  
"JAMIE! You's home!" She crowed, throwing herself at his knees. Catie blinked in surprise, but Jamie just chuckled, and swung the little girl up and flipped her over so that her hair nearly trailed on the ground. The child squealed, and flapped her hands at the ground, her giggles trilling through the air like silver bells.  
  
"Umm...Jamie?" Catie asked, smiling at the antics of the child and her friend, trying to place who the girl could be.  
  
"Oh, sorry, Catie." Jamie straightened the little girl up, holding her on one hip so that she was on the same eye level as Catie. Curious, the child peered at her like she was some kind of new bug. "Catie, this is my little sister Sami. Sami, this is my friend Catie."  
  
"I didn't know you had a little sister." Catie told him, flashing the little girl a slight smile. At about this time, Sami noticed the bruise on her cheek, and crinkled her eyebrows.   
  
"What happened to you face?" She asked in her baby face, reaching out one little hand to point at the dark shadow on Catie's cheek.   
  
"Oh...I...nothing." Catie put her hand up over her cheek, surprised that the child had asked. However, this answer did not satisfy Sami, and she turned to her older brother, her mouth pulled into a frown. But before she could repeat her question, Jamie answered her.  
  
"Catie just walked into a wall, baby girl. She's okay." That answer seemed to satisfy Sami, and she wiggled in her brother's arms, in an attempt to get down. Jamie understood, and put the child down, and she promptly ran off, her long hair flying.   
  
But before Jamie and Catie could get in the door, a tiny red haired woman with the same dark eyes as Jamie and Sami slammed into the room and filled the doorway with ninety-five pounds of pissed of motherness.   
  
"JAMES ROMEO WAITE, YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A GOOD EXCUSE FOR WHERE THE HELL YOU WERE LAST NIGHT!"   
  
"Ooohhh, Jamie's in TROUBLE..." A young female voice sing songed from the kitchen, followed by peal after peal of giggles.   
  
"Umm...hi Mom." Jamie muttered weakly, looking down at his feet.   
  
"Your middle name is ROMEO?" Catie asked in amazement.  
  
"Uh, yeah." Jamie told her, his eyes still glued to his feet. Jamie's mother glared at him for a second more, before turning to Catie and smiling brightly for a second. The smile fell off her face when she noticed the bruise on the girl's face, and she gasped.  
  
"What happened to your FACE?" The red haired woman asked in shock, stepping forward to peer closely at Catie's features.   
  
"I umm...walked into a wall?" Catie tried, chewing on her bottom lip. Jamie's mother turned her beautiful eyes, eyes that she had passed down to her son, TO her son, and questioned him with her eyes. He shook his head slightly, and pulled his lips into a frown, communicating to his mother without words what had really happened.   
  
"Sacred Dieu..." She whispered, grabbing a hold of Catie's hand and pulled her into the house and down the hall toward the kitchen.   
  
"Umm...ma'am?" Catie asked, trying, for once, to be polite. "Who...exactly are...?" She wasn't given a chance to finish however, because the tiny red haired woman beat her to it.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry! I'm Genevieve Waite...I'm Jamie's mother." Genevieve introduced herself not stopping her relentless pursuit into the kitchen.   
  
"Umm...mom? Where are you going with her?" Jamie asked from behind Catie, following the pale brunette like a big, faithful black Lab.  
  
"I'm taking your girlfriend to the kitchen to put some ice on that bruise, so it doesn't swell anymore then it already HAS." Genevieve informed her son, and Catie almost laughed. She could just HEAR the little woman rolling her eyes.  
  
"She's not my girlfriend." Jamie declared, annoyed.   
  
"Oh, right. Whatever. I don't care who she is, she needs ice put on that bruise." His mother snapped, sounding a little annoyed. "And you had better not talk back to me, young man, you are STILL in a lot of trouble. I will deal with you when I take care of her."   
  
This time Catie did laugh. She was surprised when Genevieve joined in, and she blinked. Jamie obviously had gotten more from his mother then just his eyes. He had her laugh to, though Genevieve's was higher.   
  
The red haired woman soon reached the swinging door of the kitchen, and banged through it, her tiny bare feet slapping against the linoleum. Since she still had a death grip on Catie's arm, the dark haired girl was forced to follow her, with Jamie just a few steps behind her.   
  
When they were fully inside the kitchen, Catie was returned her arm, as Jamie's mother bustled to the freezer to pull out the ice cube trays to make an ice pack. Catie, left with nothing else to do, look around at all the people in the room.   
  
Four little girls sat around the table, all looking at Catie like she was some odd rock that had just fallen out of the sky. Sami, who appeared to be the youngest smiled at her, and jumped out of her chair to run around the table and throw her arms around the older girl's waist.   
  
"Hi Jamie's girlfriend!" She giggled, her dark eyes, so like her brother's, twinkling.   
  
That got a rise out of the remaining three girls.   
  
"Jamie's got a girlfriend? Since when?" The only dark haired girl asked, grinning brightly at her brother who had stepped through the door to hear his littlest sister's comment.   
  
"She's not my girlfriend, Jazz." Jamie snapped at the girl, who just crossed her eyes at him and laughed.   
  
All of them had the same eyes, Catie noted, looking at the remaining two girls, who were both laughing into their cereal.   
  
"She's not? Then how come Sami SAID she was?" The smaller of the two red headed girls asked, grinning a gapped tooth smile.   
  
"Because Sami's little, Molly." Jamie reminded the child, looking over at Catie helplessly. His dark eyes seemed to say he was sorry about all of this, but Catie just smiled at him, the events of morning and last night dissipating under the pressure of the refreshingly normal scene in front of her.  
  
"She's not THAT little, Jamie. She's four." The remaining redhead smirked, her eyes glowing. Her hair was redder then the other girl's, Catie noted, and her eyes were a bit darker.   
  
"Four and a HALF, Crimson!" Sami shrieked from where she still had her arms around Catie's hips.  
  
"Excuse me, four and A HALF." Crimson rolled her eyes, smirking.   
  
"Dat's better." Sami allowed, grinning up at Catie. Genevieve finished the ice pack just about then, and tried to shoo the little girl away from Catie, but the child would have none of it. "I LIKE her." She informed her mother primly.  
  
"You do?" The red haired woman asked in surprise, lifting her eyebrows.   
  
"Yes, I do."  
  
"Well. Jamie, I think your just going to have to MARRY this girl." Genevieve teased her son, laughing out loud when his cheeks turned bright red. Catie giggled as well, her cheeks getting a little rosy at Jamie's mother's comments.   
  
She jumped in surprise when Genevieve pressed a cold ice packet to her face, and just barely bit back a squeal.   
  
"That's cold!" Catie muttered.  
  
"It's ice." The red haired mother smiled, lifting an eyebrow.  
  
"Mom..." Jamie groaned, annoyed.   
  
"Well, it is. Just leave that on there for a little while...ummm...what is your name?" Genevieve blinked blankly at Catie, her dark eyes wide and wondering.  
  
"Catie." The pale brunette introduced herself, looking back over at Jamie who was currently trying to steal Molly's cereal, and the child was laughing and swatting at him, her red hair swinging.   
  
"Oh! YOUR Catie!" Genevieve sounded surprised, but she smiled, her eyes twinkling. She shook her head, and laughed again, something Catie was beginning to think she did a lot. "Well come on honey, you can lay down on the couch--you look sort of pale."   
  
"I always look pale." Catie joked, following Jamie's mother out of the room after shooting one more glance at Jamie.  
  
"So do I! Curse of the red head." Genevieve shook her head, sweeping a handmade afghan off the couch and gesturing toward the dark couch encouragingly. Catie sank down gratefully, suddenly realizing that her knees felt like they were going to give out.  
  
"I...thanks."   
  
The older woman nodded, and smiled, heading toward the kitchen. "I'll send Jamie in, just as soon as I get finished yelling at him."   
  
"Don't punish him to bad--it was mostly my fault." Catie tried to take up for her friend.  
  
"Oh don't worry. I'm in no position to yell at him TOO harshly about staying out all night, and he knows it." Genevieve noted dryly, shaking her head.  
  
"Oh." Catie muttered, at a lost for what to say to that comment.   
  
Jamie's mother waved her hand and disappeared into the kitchen, her long hair floating out behind her.   
  
"JAMES..."   
  
"Mom, I can explain!"  
  
However, Catie didn't hear his explanation. As soon as her head hit the soft pillow, she was fast asleep, the ice pack still resting on her cheek.  
  
  
  
  



End file.
